Big Salads and Homemade Granola

Since we are going to Tampa for the weekend, for my niece’s birthday (she is turning 4!), I was trying to use up everything we had so it wouldn’t go bad when we were gone. For lunch, I threw a bunch of ingreds into one big container and called it a salad.

I actually just used the container the spinach came in, since I was using the rest of it, and that meant I wouldn’t have to wash any dishes 😉

In the mix:

Spinach

Cukes

Stawberries

Avocado

Morningstar Chick’n Patty

Salt and Pepper

Squirt of lemon juice

Balsamic Vinegar

This combo was awesome!!! The strawberries and balsamic went really well together! Mmmm…

For a long time now I have been saying how much I wanted to try to make my own granola, so, last night I thought I would give it a try!

Basically I looked at a bunch of recipes and just kindof threw one together:

Ingreds:

2 cups oats

1/2 cup nuts (your choice – i used walnuts, it was all we had)

1/4 brown sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup oil, scant

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat your oven to 300.

Mix oats, nuts, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon.

Combine oil, honey, and sugar over medium heat. Remove and add vanilla, pour over oats mixture and stir well until evenly coated.

Spread on baking sheet.

Bake 20 – 30 minutes, let cool completely.

The verdict? Pretty good!

I think I may have baked it a teeeensy bit too long… and I think next time I would add a little less brown sugar sugar. It was a bit too sweet for me, but that did not stop me from eating it 😀

I am in Orlando for work next week, but will definitely be trying my hand at this again!